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Argumentation methods in educational contexts: Introduction to the special issue
Abstract
The relation between argumentation and education is currently attracting researchers’ attention from both argumentation theory and educational practice fields. Although much work has been done in the intersection between methods of analyzing and assessing arguments and their emergence in educational contexts, there is still a lack of clarity regarding how the philosophical and logical tradition can feed educational practice and vice versa. This introduction of the special issue on “Argumentation methods in educational contexts” is aimed at explaining the need for more systematic discussions between the two sub-fields. The paper concludes with an overview of the five articles that form part of this special issue, which separately represent directions for future research in the field of argument in education.
... Van Eemeren (2014) reviewed the meaning of argumentation in different languages and susequently defined argumentation as "a communicative and interactional act complex aimed at resolving a difference of opinion with the addressee by putting forward a constellation of propositions the arguer can be held accountable for to make the standpoint at issue acceptable to a rational judge who judges reasonably" (2014, p. 7). According to Rapanta et al. (2016), argumentation can serve as a way of thinking, teaching and collaborating. Budke et al. (2020, p. 109) described "argumentation as a problem-solving process in which a disputed assertion is to be refuted or confirmed by justifications". ...
... Students are prepared for different types of argumentation in the various school subjects according to subject-specific goals, objects and perspectives. A number of studies have shown that argumentation can be used within every subjects taught in school Rapanta & Macagno, 2016;Erduran et al., 2015). ...
This article focuses on the promotion of argumentation skills in Vietnamese geography teaching, which are not only relevant for understanding subject contexts but also for evaluation and critical reflection processes. An earlier study in this context showed that limited argumentation tasks are incorporated into the central medium of instruction, the textbook, and that this competence is rarely promoted in the classroom (Nguyen, 2018). However, a curriculum reform and revision of textbooks is currently taking place in Vietnam, alongside a liberalisation of the textbook market. As the main goal of the reform is competence orientation, this article examines the extent to which the importance of promoting argumentation competences through specifications in the new curriculum and tasks in new textbooks have increased in comparison to the previous study. The results suggest that there are few developments in this area, which are further discussed in the conclusion, in the context of the global challenges for implementing competence orientation through curricular.
... This methodological gap may be due to a lack of an integration between the characteristics that make a text argumentative to provide a unique assessment of its quality and a lack of dialogue between argumentation theory and educational studies. In education and, in particular, within the area of argumentation and education, the quality of arguments has been distinguished methodologically from the quality of argumentation (Rapanta & Macagno, 2016). The negative result is that a plethora of coding schemes, rubrics, and frameworks have been proposed for analyzing students' oral and written argumentation, each capturing a different dimension thereof and thus leading to different evaluations. ...
... To this purpose, we consider the most important theoretical models underlying the operationalization of the distinct levels that emerge from the education literature -and are mirrored by the literature in linguistics as textual clues. While many coding schemes have been developed, the underlying theories of what counts as an argumentative text can usually be traced to three basic frameworks (for a review, see Rapanta & Macagno, 2016;Rapanta, Garcia-Mila, & Gilabert, 2013;Nussbaum, 2003Nussbaum, , 2011): Toulmin's argument pattern, Kuhn's dialogical approach, and the argumentation schemes theory. In the following sections, we present these three theoretical frameworks and point out their limitations, which can be overcome by integrating them. ...
The definition and the assessment of the quality of argumentative texts has become an increasingly crucial issue in education, classroom discourse, and argumentation theory. The different methods developed and used in the literature are all characterized by specific perspectives that fail to capture the complexity of the subject matter, which remains ill-defined and not systematically investigated. This paper addresses this problem by building on the four main dimensions of argument quality resulting from the definition of argument and the literature in classroom discourse: dialogicity, accountability, relevance, and textuality (DART). We use and develop the insights from the literature in education and argumentation by integrating the frameworks that capture both the textual and the argumentative nature of argumentative texts. This theoretical background will be used to propose a method for translating the DART dimensions into specific and clear proxies and evaluation criteria.
... Argumentation is normally conceived as the product of discourse-namely the arguments (intended as claims supported by one or more reasons) provided in written or oral textsor the process of dialogically presenting different opinions supported by reasons (Nielsen, 2013;O'Keefe, 1977;Rapanta & Macagno, 2016). ...
Few empirical studies in Science Education have investigated the contributions of inte- grating scientific practices such as argumentation and modelling. In this article, I examine the characteristics of high school students’ argumentative dialogues in different modelling situations. From this, I discuss the influences of modelling and the nature of each situation analysed on the characteristics of the students’ argumentative dialogues. One didactic unit consisting of sets of modelling activities in everyday, scientific and socio-scientific situ- ations was applied in a regular class. The tool that describes argumentative dialogues in science teaching contexts across the varied and interrelated dimensions was applied to high school students’ argumentative dialogues that took place during modelling situations. Data collection (involving audio and video recording plus observations made by the researcher) revealed that students engaged in different argumentative dialogues, which were made up of different types of dialogic and meta-dialogic moves. Most of these moves were rele- vant and also contributed to the construction of knowledge in all modelling situations. The results also show that the nature of the situation can influence specific aspects of students’ argumentation, but such influence does not interfere with the quality of their argumentative dialogues; the argumentative dialogues are connected to persuasion, information sharing and sharing the same idea in all modelling stages; and the modelling influences the stu- dents to engage in quality argumentative dialogues that ultimately contributes to the con- struction of knowledge of different natures. Implications for future research and classroom practice are presented and discussed.
... The goal of this review article was to provide a qualitative synthesis of empirical and theoretical research applying and advancing Douglas Walton's contributions in the field of education. The two fields of argumentation theory, on one hand, and educational research, on the other, have often advanced separately without one informing the other, therefore often rendering argumentation and education applications theoretically weak (Rapanta and Macagno 2016). Douglas Walton's theoretical contributions in the argumentation field, such as the argumentation schemes, the critical questions, and the types of argument dialogues, have been proven "handy" tools for educational research to use, as the overview presented above showed. ...
Douglas Walton, perhaps the most prolific author in Argumentation theory, has been of a great influence in the fields of Informal logic, Artificial intelligence, and Law. His contributions in the field of educational research , in particular in the field of argumentation and education, are less known. This review paper aims at shedding light on those aspects of Wal-ton's theory that have received educational researchers' attention thus far, as well identifying existing lacks of consideration and open paths for future research.
... Varied approaches have been developed to describe, analyze, and assess students' and teachers' argumentation (for a review of the literature, see Muller-Mirza & Perret-Clermont, 2009;Rapanta, 2019;Schwarz & Baker, 2016). However specifically defined in distinct theories Walton, 2006), argumentation is normally conceived as a twofold phenomenon referring to both 1) the product of discourse, namely the arguments (intended as claims supported by one or more reasons) provided in written or oral texts, and 2) the dialogical processes of presenting opinions supported by reasons (Nielsen, 2013;O'Keefe, 1977;Rapanta & Macagno, 2016). The study of argumentation thus needs to address two distinct and interrelated dimensions (Rapanta & Macagno, 2019): the "logical" one, corresponding to the reconstruction and evaluation of arguments (described through their structure and types, see Toulmin, 1958;Walton et al., 2008), and the "pragmatic" one, namely the analysis of argumentative dialogues and moves (Macagno & Bigi, 2017;van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1984;Walton, 1989). ...
Most of the tools developed in the area of Science Education aimed at analyzing either the product or the process of argumentation do not consider the following: (a) arguments are a part of dialogues, (b) dialogues present different objectives, (c) dialogues start from different assumptions, and (d) dialogues shape the roles and moves of interlocutors. This paper intends to address the analysis of argumentative exchanges within educational science dialogues considering several aspects of argumentation that have neglected to be investigated in the field of education, such as the relations among individual moves and the dialogues they are part of, and the influence of such moves on knowledge construction. Toward this purpose, a proposed tool is presented, which describes argumentative dialogues in science teaching contexts across the varied and interrelated dimensions. This tool, consisting of six analytical aspects, is applied to high school chemistry students' argumentative dialogues taking place during modeling activities. Data collection (involving audio and video recording plus observations made by the researchers) revealed the main affordances of this tool as follows: (a) favoring an understanding of the individual and collective students' intentions; (b) enabling the characterization of argumentative discourse beyond the moves of refuting, questioning and providing support; (c) enabling the identification of whether knowledge construction has occurred; and (d) the possibility of analyzing teaching situations across different contexts. Thus, the tool supports the descriptions and analyses of the scientific argumentation process and the associated knowledge construction by students.
... Rather than being the master of the class, teachers have become guides in the classroom to convey knowledge and provide students with skills such as multi-dimensional thinking, questioning, research, and discussion. Today, while students are expected to know how to think, teachers are expected to know how to teach students to be autonomous, logical, and critical (Rapanta & Macagno, 2016). Thanks to this awareness, teachers will be able to train students who adopt the worldview of multiple truths instead of the unconditional world view based on accepting a single truth (Titiz, 2013). ...
The study aimed to examine the effect of argumentation-based teaching approach on developing prospective teachers' argument skills, and on their willingness to debate. The study employed the one-group pre-test-post-test experimental research design based on quantitative data. The participants consisted of a total of 192 3rd grade prospective teachers who were selected using maximum variation sampling method from the departments of Social Studies Education, Classroom Education and Mathematics Education in a state university in Turkey in 2019-2020 academic year. The data were obtained using the “Moral Dilemma Stories” developed by Rest (1979), and adapted into Turkish by Akkoyun (1987); and the “Scale of Willingness to Debate” developed by Infante and Rancer (1982), and adapted to Turkish by Kaya (2005). The data were analyzed via descriptive and inferential statistical analysis methods and Argumentation Assessment Rubric developed by Erduran, Simon, and Osborne (2004). The results revealed that the argumentation-based teaching increased the prospective teachers' argument skills and their willingness to debate. It was also found out that making use of such skills as researching, reasoning, discussing, expressing thoughts, and persuading, in student-oriented education systems in a more comprehensive way could be helpful to support the argumentation-based teaching approach.
... With regard to argumentation, it is conceived as a rational activity that attempts to provide a good reason that leads someone to admit a given conclusion (Plantin, 2014); it is a type of discourse that attempts to resolve or prevent a difference of opinion, revealing the acceptability of a specific point of view in a critical way ( Van-Eemeren, Houtlosser & Snoeck, 2007). The argument is conceived from two perspectives, the first as a product of oral or written discourse, susceptible to structural analysis, and the second perspective, which considers it a dialogic process containing different opinions, supported by various reasons, which are presented to an interlocutor with the aim of convincing or persuading him/ her (Rapanta & Macagno, 2016). ...
The objective of this article is to analyse the presence of narrative structural elements of the history of a children's literary text in children's stories, analyse the argumentative schemes that they implement when they justify both the actions of the characters and their own positions on what happened in the story. Forty five students, 25 girls and 20 boys between 6 and 10 years old participated in this research (M = 8.10, SD = 0.9); from first to fifth grade of the elementary school of a school in the city of Bogotá (Colombia). The corpus used in this report was composed of 1152 statements in 655 speaking turns. The quantitative analyses through chi-square account for significant differences for the mean of narrative structural elements, narrative categories and argumentative sche-ma by grade level. The results are discussed highlighting that the use of narration and argumentation converges gradually and that these types of discourse together favour the re-tellings of narrative texts.
... Social and scientific issues are undeniably a trigger for debate in ordinary people and academics. Each as a representative of the people who have concern for the development of the world as if competing to give their opinions on support or rejection of the issue (Rapanta & Macagno, 2016). ...
The research aims to build and measure students' abilities in rebuttal using the Scientific Writing Heuristic (SWH) approach. This mixed-method research method was carried out for 5 months on 38 students, at a high school in West Java, Indonesia. The issue of socio-scientific genetics is given the theme of Genetic Modified Organisms with rebuttal measurements using the updated Toulmin argumentation framework. Qualitative and quantitative data are taken in this article in the form of argumentation before, during, and after treatment; coupled with deep interviews and questionnaires as well as observation of discussions. The results showed there were changes and improvements in rebuttal ability by 27.15% (30 students). The distribution of the strength of evidence is at most level 2 at 48.7% with a weak category, at level 3 at 30.8% with a strong enough category, at level 4 at 20.5% with a strong category.
... Learners are expected to know how to think, and teachers are expected to know how to teach learners to be autonomous, logical and critical in choosing a theory and evidence which could support their ideas (Rapanta and Macagno 2016). Existing literature suggest that introducing argumentation in science teaching could improve learners' conceptual understanding, support their informed decision making and enable them to experience the scientist's way of reasoning and work (e.g., Erduran 2019; Faize et al. 2018;Osborne et al. 2004;Zohar and Nemet 2002). ...
The aim of this research was to establish the effects of argumentation and the quality of arguments related to history of the development of organic chemistry: (i) on the level of the pupils’ knowledge about the composition, structure and general properties of organic compounds; and (ii) on their perception of the key aspect of NOS that scientific knowledge is tentative. A quasi-experiment involved two parallel groups of 14-year-old pupils, a total of 105 of them. The pupils in group А, as opposed to those in group B, were exposed to argumentation in the context of history of the development of organic chemistry. The instruments in this research were a diagnostic test, used to establish how well matched the groups were in terms of previous knowledge, and a post-test, the purpose of which was to establish the effects of argumentation on the pupils’ achievements. After both tests, the pupils expressed their views of the fact that the scientific knowledge is tentative using a five-point Likert scale. All the arguments produced in group A were classified in four categories based on their structure. Although a moderately positive correlation between the quality of arguments and the post-test achievements in group A was established, no significant difference between the arithmetic means in the post-test in groups A and B was found. After the intervention, a significantly higher number of pupils in group A were of the opinion that scientific knowledge is tentative, compared with the number of pupils from group B.
... The use of scientific argumentation in teaching provides teachers with an opportunity to develop these skills in students (Rapanta and Macagno, 2016). It would be interesting to introduce scientific argumentation in teaching environmental issues and problems in Pakistan, where the students have little exposure to modern and activity-based teaching methods (Faize, 2015). ...
This study was aimed at connecting undergraduate students to nature and later involving them in scientific argumentation as an effort to improve environmental education. The objective was to investigate the effect of this involvement in addressing students’ environmental knowledge (EK) and environmental attitude (EA). Two pre-existing sections of Bio-sciences students were taken as study sample, with one section randomly assigned to an experimental (N = 42) and the other to a control group (N = 32). The qualitative part included observation of environmental problems and delivering of presentation using scientific argumentation in the experimental group. The quantitative approach covered the measurement of environmental knowledge and environmental attitude through two tests in both the groups. The findings revealed significant positive correlation between environmental knowledge and environmental attitude (r = 0.785, p < .01) in the experimental group. This group also performed better on environmental knowledge and attitude tests than the control group. It can be concluded that connecting students with nature and then involvement in scientific argumentation helped in improving students’ environmental knowledge and attitude.
... The look back aspect is developed based on act aspect. The acting aspect is an implementation activity of the strategy that has been made [35]. The strategy has been implemented is chosen by considering the highest success results of several existing strategies, because the chosen strategy relates to the results obtained [36][37]. ...
Content and context are the important parts of achieving learning goals in the biology material, namely the human respiratory system. The aim of this research is to determine the relevance between content and context in respiratory system material in senior high school. The relevance is based on the integration of problem-solving and decision making aspects. The procedures of the research are: determining problem solving and decision making aspects; organizing integration of problem solving and decision making aspects in respiratory system materials; deciding indicators in the integration of problem solving & decision making aspects to analyzing respiratory system materials; analyzing content and context in respiratory system materials based on indicators; determining the relevance between content and context is based on percentage range. The research result shows that 56% of content and context are irrelevant, while 44% of content and context are relevant, although the percentage in every aspect is less than 5% of the total indicator. In conclusion, the relevance between content and context in respiratory system material based on the integration of look back and decision-making aspects has the highest relevance.
... While argumentation as a type of discourse remains important in science, technology, engineering and math fields, doctorpatient communication (Labrie & Schultz, 2014), and educational contexts more generally (Rapanta & Macagno, 2016), focusing on it to the exclusion of all other models is problematic. Features of online discussions not consistent with argumentation models may, in fact, be quite necessary for students to engage at all. ...
In this conceptual paper, we propose that insights from conversation analysis (CA) may provide a useful approach for scholars interested in online learning by focusing first on how learners themselves orient to performing social actions online. We further propose that gaining a better understanding of what conversational moves are actually doing in online discussion can help researchers and educators better assess the learning that takes place there. Through worked examples, we demonstrate the ways that three conversational features (agreements, personal experiences and stories, and cognition verbs) tend to function in online institutional talk. We illustrate how these conversational features can accomplish a variety of actions in online academic discussions, including social affiliation, displaying expertise, and distancing oneself from claims. Recognizing how these features are interactionally deployed can help scholars better understand the functions of learners’ talk. CA is a practical methodology for educators who may be reluctant to impose interactional frameworks on student discussions for learning.
... This is "a social process in which individuals work together to construct and critique arguments" (p.348). Whilst its definition is comparable to others in this field, (Berland & Reiser, 2009;Kuhn and Reiser;Newel, Beach, Smith & VanDerHide, 2011;Rapanta & Macagno, 2016), it is distinguished by the emphasis on being 'less adversarial'. Argumentation is not about winning or losing, rather its strength is found in the collaborative exploratory nature where evidence is argued in such a manner that evaluative concession is encouraged. ...
Dialogic approaches are promising vehicles for effective pedagogy, providing opportunities for students to talk about learning; build on and sustain individual and collective identities, and; advance thinking and understanding in ways that support enhanced achievement. Whilst this is an idealised view of talk in classrooms, international literature provides evidence that suggests teachers struggle to shift practice toward dialogic pedagogy. From a national perspective, a more pressing issue given the nature of this study is to reconcile international views of dialogic pedagogy with a Pacific worldview. This article reports on the process of developing an analytic framework or tool for identifying ‘dialogic’ practices that are informed by Pacific ways of knowing or orientations, including language practices to progress that reconciliation. The reconceptualised ‘Pacific Dialogic Indicator Tool’(PDIT) will foreground culturally validated language acts based on talanoa dimensions and weave across these dimensions key dialogic principles that are research-based. © 2018, Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research. All rights reserved.
... The relation between argumentation and education has been vastly explored during the last decades (Rapanta and Macagno 2016;Chinn 2006;Clark and Sampson et al. 2007;Erduran and Jimenez-Aleixandre 2008;Muller-Mirza and Perret-Clermont 2009). Much emphasis has been placed on the types of skills or strategies that both teachers and students may adopt for constructive dialogical argumentation in the classroom to take place (Rapanta, Garcia-Mila and Gilabert 2013;Felton, Garcia-Mila, et al. 2015;Kuhn, Hemberger and Khait 2014). ...
The view that argumentation is a desired reasoning practice in the classroom is well reported in the literature. Nonetheless, it is still not clear what type of reasoning supports classroom argumentation. The paper discusses abductive reasoning as the most adequate for students’ arguments to emerge in a classroom discussion. Abductive reasoning embraces the idea of plausibility and defeasibility of both the premises and the conclusion. As such, teachers’ role becomes the one of guiding students through formulating relevant hypotheses and selecting the most plausible one according to criteria. Argumentation schemes are proposed as useful tools in this process.
L'idée que l'argumentation est une pratique de raisonnement souhaitée en classe est bien documentée dans la littérature. Néanmoins, il n'est toujours pas clair quel type de raisonnement soutient l'argumentation en classe. Dans cet article on discute du raisonnement abductif comme étant le plus adéquat pour que les arguments des élèves émergent dans une discussion en classe. Le raisonnement abductif emploie l'idée de plausibilité et de la révocabilité des prémisses et de la conclusion. En tant que tel, le rôle des enseignants consiste à guider les élèves à formuler des hypothèses pertinentes et à sélectionner le plus plausible selon des critères. Les schèmes d'argumentation sont proposés comme des outils utiles dans ce processus.
... The importance of deliberative argumentation has been acknowledged also in education. Educational psychology has recently focused on the study of argumentative interactions between learners (Rapanta et al. 2013;Rapanta and Macagno 2016;Schwarz and Baker 2016, 135), both for the purposes of learning to argue and arguing to learn (Kuhn et al. 2014;Andriessen et al. 2003;Von Aufschnaiter et al. 2008). However, as Felton and colleagues underscored, ''although argumentative dialogue can improve content learning and argument quality on socio-scientific issues, the benefits are mediated by individuals' task goals while arguing'' (Felton et al. 2009, 433). ...
This paper compares current ways of modeling the inferential structure of practical (goal-based) reasoning arguments, and proposes a new approach in which it is regarded in a modular way. Practical reasoning is not simply seen as reasoning from a goal and a means to an action using the basic argumentation scheme. Instead, it is conceived as a complex structure of classificatory, evaluative, and practical inferences, which is formalized as a cluster of three types of distinct and interlocked argumentation schemes. Using two real examples, we show how applying the three types of schemes to a cluster of practical argumentation allows an argument analyst to reconstruct the tacit premises presupposed and evaluate the argumentative reasoning steps involved. This approach will be shown to overcome the limitations of the existing models of practical reasoning arguments within the BDI and commitment theoretical frameworks, providing a useful tool for discourse analysis and other disciplines. In particular, applying this method brings to light the crucial role of classification in practical argumentation, showing how the ordering of values and preferences is only one of the possible areas of deep disagreement.
This paper analyzes a particular type of support that religious authorities use in their argumentative monologues on moral and theological matters. In particular, the argumentative monologue given by Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI during his 2011 visit to the federal parliament in the Reichstag in Berlin will be used as a case study. In his speech, Ratzinger offers his reflections on the foundations of law starting from his interpretation of a brief story from the First Book of the Kings in the Old Testament ( 1 Kings 3:5–10). The entire interpretation assumes the form of an argumentative text, in which he appeals to an authoritative voice of German-language jurisprudence (Hans Kelsen) and three Christian religious authorities (St Augustine, Origen of Alexandria, and St Paul). The aim of the study is to assess the pragmatic strength of Ratzinger’s argumentation and thus verify the authoritative contribution of religious experts in his argumentation, in which religion and ethics are linked together.
The research articles(RAs) as the dominant genre of academic writing can be accounted as the sites of reproduction of unequal power relations and dominance. Through critical discourse analysis of epistemological and ontological underpinnings and subsequently methodological aims and values of positivist paradigm as social structures, this article aims to foreground power and ideology stricken latent aspects of empiricist RAs. Research as a social practice mediates between the social structures and the RAs as social events. Textual analysis of practical arguments presented mostly in the pedagogical implications part revealed that the scientific world views manifest themselves as the premises of these arguments. The premises can provide reasons for actions ( Searle’s,2010 , social ontology theory). The reasons can signify the empiricist interests as the global concerns. They exclude the rival paradigms or ways of understanding the world. These world views maintain the dominance of Western societies on global academic and social discourses.
En este artículo se tiene como objetivos analizar la presencia de elementos estructurales narrativos de la historia de un texto literario infantil en los relatos de niños y niñas sobre dicha obra y analizar los esquemas argumentativos que implementan cuando justifican tanto las acciones de los personajes como sus propias posiciones en torno a lo sucedido en la historia. Participaron en esta investigación 45 estudiantes, 25 niñas y 20 niños con edades entre los 6 años y los 10 años de edad (M= 8.10; DE= 0.9); inscritos desde primer hasta quinto grado de educación básica primaria de un colegio de la ciudad de Bogotá (Colombia). El corpus utilizado en esta investigación estuvo conformado por 1152 enunciados en 655 turnos de palabra. Los análisis cuantitativos a través de Chi-cuadrado dan cuenta de diferencias significativas para la media de elementos estructurales narrativos, categorías narrativas y esquemas argumentales por grado. Se discuten los resultados resaltando que el uso de la narración y la argumentación convergen paulatinamente y que estos tipos de discurso en conjunto favorecen la renarración de textos narrativos.
This paper presents preliminary findings of the project "Analyzing children's implicit argumentation: Reconstruction of procedural and material premises." This interdiscipli-nary project builds on argumentation theory and developmental sociocultur-al psychology for the study of children's argumentation. We reconstruct children's inferences in adult-child and child-child dialogical interaction in conversation in different settings. In particular, we focus on implicit premises using the Argumentum Model of Topics (AMT) for the reconstruction of the inferential configuration of arguments. Our findings reveal that sources of misunderstandings are, more often than not, due to misalignments of implicit premises between adults and children; these misalignments concern material premises rather than the inferential-procedural level.
Résumé: Cette contribution présente les résultats préliminaires du projet «Analyse de l'argumentation implicite des enfants: reconstruction des pré-misses procédurales et matérielles». Ce projet interdisciplinaire s'appuie sur la théorie de l'argumentation et sur la psychologie socioculturelle du développement pour étudier l'argumentation des enfants. Nous reconstruisons les inférences des enfants dans des interactions dialo-giques au cours de conversations adulte-enfant et enfant-enfant dans différents contextes. En particulier, nous nous concentrons sur les pré-misses implicites en utilisant le Argu-mentum Model of Topics (AMT) pour la reconstruction de la configuration inférentielle des arguments. Nos résultats révèlent que les sources de malentendus résident le plus souvent dans le non-alignement des prémisses des adultes et des enfants; et que ces non-alignements concernent plus souvent les prémisses matérielles que les procédures inférentielles.
This paper describes a novel instrument of assessing adolescent and adult students’ perception of arguments structure, nature, and quality as a method of adapting teaching and designing of argumentation tasks to learners’ epistemic knowledge of argumentation. The author’s goal is to present the steps of the validation of the instrument discussing validity and reliability issues, and to discuss potential uses of the instrument as a way to diagnose students’ status of argument quality perception before engaging them in collaborative tasks.
This article explores the concepts of critical questions (from D. N. Walton, 199670.
Walton , D. N. 1996 . Argument schemes for presumptive reasoning , Mahwah, NJ : Erlbaum . View all references) and integrative and refutational argument stratagems as an approach for teaching argumentation and critical thinking. A study was conducted for 6 months in 3 sections of a 7th-grade social studies classroom in which 30 students discussed and wrote about current events. One section served as a comparison group. Over time the experimental group made more arguments that integrated both sides of each issue. Collectively, the experimental group also successfully constructed salient critical questions, particularly in regard to weighing values and designing practical creative solutions. In-depth analysis of 1 student showed how conceptual structures and argument practices improved incrementally over time and how the appropriation of stratagems may have been facilitated by the dialectical nature of the intervention (e.g., using critical questions and stratagems successfully in discourse). The theoretical and practical importance of Walton's dialogue theory, and the critical question approach to argumentation, are discussed.
Much psychological research on argumentation focuses on persuasion and pragmatics. However, one strand investigates how average people understand the nature of knowledge and knowing, and how these epistemological orientations underlie skilled argumentation. The research reviewed addresses the question whether the normative emphasis of the philosophical epistemological approach to argumentation matches psychological findings. The empirical research reviewed concerns the relationship between personal episte- mological understanding and three aspects of argument: argument construction, identification of informal reasoning fallacies, and orientation toward explanation or evidence. Findings suggest that people develop an epistemological approach toward argumentation in which beliefs about knowledge justification requirements are related with skilled argumentation.
In this paper we investigate the extent to which formal argumentation models can handle ten basic characteristics of informal logic identified in the informal logic literature. By showing how almost all of these characteristics can be successfully modelled formally, we claim that good progress can be made toward the project of formalizing informal logic. Of the formal argumentation models available, we chose the Carneades Argumentation System (CAS), a formal, computational model of argument that uses argument graphs as its basis, structures of a kind very familiar to practitioners of informal logic through their use of argument diagrams.
Epistemic dialogues, involving explanation and argumentation, have been recognized as potential vehicles for conceptual understanding. Although the role of dialogue in learning has received much attention, the problem of creating situations in which students engage in epistemic dialogue has only begun to be addressed. This article highlights the set of factors that must be taken into account in designing a computer-supported collaborative learning situation that encourages students to discuss scientific notions. These factors include the choice of the domain issue, the activities proposed to students, and the role of technology. We describe the design of CONNECT, an integrated environment and task sequence for the collaborative confrontation, negotiation, and construction of text. Results are then presented from a study in which students individually wrote an interpretation of a sound phenomenon, were matched in dyads so as to maximize semantic differences between their texts, and then collaboratively discussed and wrote common texts across the network using CONNECT. We show how careful engineering of the CONNECT environment favors the occurrence of epistemic dialogue and creates opportunities for conceptual understanding. The discussion centers on why these opportunities might be missed, as well as on the conditions required for students to exploit them.
The study presented here examines how interacting with a more capable interlocutor influences use of argumentation strategies in electronic discourse. To address this question, 54 young adolescents participating in an intervention centered on electronic peer dialogs were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control condition. In both conditions, pairs who held the same
position on a social issue engaged in a series of electronic dialogs with pairs who held an opposing position. In the experimental condition, in some dialogs, unbeknownst to them (because dialog took place electronically), the opponent was a more capable (“expert”) adult. Dialogs in the control condition were only with peers. Argumentation strategies of the experimental group who argued with the “expert” showed immediate strategy improvements in their subsequent peer
dialogs, improvement absent in the control group (Cohen’s d ¼ 1.12). In particular, the experimental group showed greater use of counterargument in general and advanced forms of counterargument (undermining) that challenges the deeper premises or reasoning on which an argument is based. Implications with respect to mechanisms of change in the development of argumentation skills are considered.
It is now well recognised that argumentative interactions can be vehicles of collaborative learning, especially on a conceptual plane (see e.g. Andriessen & Coiner, 1999). Information and communication technologies such as Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (“CSCL”) environments can play an important role in such learning to the extent that they enable task sequences and interpersonal communication media to be structured in ways that favour the co-elaboration1 of knowledge (e.g. Baker, 1996, 1999; Baker, de Vries, Lund & Quignard, 2001).
There is growing interest in using argumentative discourse in educational settings. However, in a previous study, we found that discourse goals (persuasion vs. consensus) while arguing can affect student outcomes in both content learning and reasoning.
In this study, we look at argumentative discourse data from a previous study to ask how differences in discourse might account for the differences we observed in learning and reasoning outcomes.
One hundred and five dialogues (57 disputative, 48 consensus) between 7th grade science students attending a public high school near Tarragona, Spain.
Participants were randomly assigned to conditions and paired with peers who disagreed with them on three topics related to renewable energy sources. After instruction on each topic, they were asked to either 'argue to convince' (persuasion condition) or 'argue to reach consensus' (consensus condition) on that topic. Conversations were audio-recorded and transcribed for analysis.
Students in the persuasion condition engaged in shorter conversational exchanges around argumentative claims and were more likely to use moves that foreclosed discussion, whereas students in the consensus condition were more likely to use moves that elicited, elaborated on, and integrated their partners' ideas.
When arguing to reach - rather than defend - a conclusion, students are more likely to coconstruct knowledge by exchanging and integrating arguments. These findings are consistent with predictions about the potential of argumentation for knowledge building and suggest that teachers must attend to discourse goals when using argumentation to support learning and reasoning.
© 2015 The British Psychological Society.
The study presented here examines how interacting with a more capable interlocutor influences use of argumentation strategies in electronic discourse. To address this question, 54 young adolescents participating in an intervention centered on electronic peer dialogs were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control condition. In both conditions, pairs who held the same position on a social issue engaged in a series of electronic dialogs with pairs who held an opposing position. In the experimental condition, in some dialogs, unbeknownst to them (since dialog took place electronically) the opponent was a more capable (“expert”) adult. Dialogs in the control condition were only with peers. Argumentation strategies of the experimental group who argued with the “expert” showed immediate strategy improvements in their subsequent peer dialogs, improvement absent in the control group (Cohen's d = 1.12). In particular the experimental group showed greater use of counterargument in general as well as an advanced form of counterargument (undermining) that challenges the deeper premises or reasoning on which an argument is based. Implications with respect to mechanisms of change in the development of argumentation skills are considered.
The need to enhance argument skills through education has become increasingly evident during the past 20 years. This need has resulted in an ongoing discussion that focuses on students' and teachers' argumentation and its support. However, apart from the extended competence-based discourse, no clear and homogeneous definition exists for argumentative competence and its constituent skills. To respond to this deficiency, we conducted an integrative literature review focusing on the methods of argument analysis and assessment that have been proposed thus far in the field of education. Specifically, we constructed an interpretative framework to organize the information contained in 97 reviewed studies in a coherent and meaningful way. The main result of the framework's application is the emergence of three levels of argumentative competence: metacognitive, metastrategic, and epistemological competence. We consider this result the beginning of further research on the psycho-pedagogical nature of argument skills and their manifestation as competent performance.
In argumentative discourse, there are two kinds of activity–dispute and deliberation–that depend on the argumentative task goal. In dispute the goal is to defend a conclusion by undermining alternatives, whereas in deliberation the goal is to arrive at a conclusion by contrasting alternatives. In this study, we examine the impact of these tasks goals on the quality of argumentative discourse. Sixty-five junior high school students were organized into dyads to discuss sources of energy. Dyads were formed by members who had differing viewpoints and were distributed to one of two conditions: 31 dyads were asked to discuss with the goal to persuade the partner, and 34 were asked to reach consensus. Argumentation was analyzed using a schema based on Toulmin (1958). Eleven different argumentative structures resulted from the combination of Toulmin's basic elements. Students in the consensus group scored significantly higher than students in the persuasion group in 5/6 argumentative structures that included rebuttals. The major implication of the present work is that, similar to Mercer's (2000) claim about types of classroom conversation, not all classroom argumentation tasks promote scientific reasoning equally. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 97:497–523, 2013
Drawing on sociological and philosophical studies of science, science educators have begun to view argumentation as a central scientific practice that students should learn. In this article, we extend recent work to understand the structure of students' arguments to include judgments about their quality through content analyses of high school students' written explanations for 2 problems of natural selection. In these analyses, we aim to explicate the relations between students' conceptual understanding of specific domains and their epistemic understanding of scientific practices of argumentation as they try to learn science through inquiry. We present a method that assesses the warrant of explanatory claims, the sufficiency of the evidence explicitly cited for claims, and students' rhetorical use of specific inscriptions in their arguments. Students were attentive to the need to cite data, yet they often failed to cite sufficient evidence for claims. Students' references to specific inscriptions in their arguments often failed to articulate how specific data related to particular claims. We discuss these patterns of data citation in terms of what they suggest about students' epistemological ideas about explanation and consequent implications for inquiry-oriented, science education reforms.
The skills involved in argument as a social discourse activity presumably develop during the childhood and adolescent years, but little is known about the course of that development. As an initial step in examining this development, a coding system was developed for the purpose of analyzing multiple dialogues between peers on the topic of capital punishment. A comparison of the dialogues of young adolescents and those of young adults showed the teens to be more preoccupied with producing the dialogue and less able to behave strategically with respect to the goals of argumentive discourse. Teens also did not exhibit the strategic skill that adults did of adapting discourse to the requirements of particular argumentive contexts (agreeing vs. disagreeing dialogues).
Cutting across the common distinction between learning to argue and arguing to learn, this research is concerned with arguing to learn argumentative knowledge, or broadening and deepening understanding of the space of debate. A secondary school experiment compared broadening/deepening of understanding of the space of a debate on genetically modified organisms, using either a CHAT tool, or else an argument-diagram tool (DREW: Dialogical Reasoning Educational Web tool) that was designed as a medium for interactive debate. Although there was no significant difference between the quality of students' texts before and after debating across the conditions, a new interaction analysis method ("Rainbow") revealed differences in students' expression and elaboration of arguments.
Toulmin's model of argumentation, developed in 1958, has guided much argumentation research in education. However, argumentation theory in philosophy and cognitive science has advanced considerably since 1958. There are currently several alternative frameworks of argumentation that can be useful for both research and practice in education. These frameworks include Walton's dialogue theory and Bayesian models of everyday arguments. This article reviews and evaluates these frameworks and shows how each can be applied instructionally (e.g., through the teaching of critical questions or probability modeling) and, from a research standpoint, in evaluating the content and quality of informal arguments. It is concluded that attention to these and other contemporary argumentation frameworks can help move the study of argumentation in education forward.
Researchers in science education have converged on the view
that argumentation can be an effective intervention for promoting knowledge construction in science classrooms.
However, the impact of such interventions may be mediated by individuals’ task goals while arguing. In argumentative discourse, one can distinguish two overlapping but distinct kinds of activity: dispute and deliberation. In dispute the goal is to defend a conclusion by undermining alternatives, whereas in deliberation the goal is to arrive at a conclusion by contrasting alternatives. In this study, we examine the impact of these discourse goals on both content learning and argument quality in science.
Research on collaborative learning currently emphasises the need to understand the processes at work in communicative interactions between learners, as a means of discovering interactive learning mechanisms. Within this general research programme, we concentrate on the specific case of argumentative interactions, with the aim of describing how they can be constructive. A constructive interaction is defined as one in which new meanings or knowledge are co-elaborated, and/or one that fulfils some specific (constructive) function with respect to cooperative activity. Our main proposal is that in order to address this research problem we need to combine analyses of argumentative interactions along five theoretically separable dimensions: dialectical, rhetorical, epistemological, conceptual and interactive. Respectively, these consider argumentative interactions in terms of rational criticism, cognitive effects on participants, the nature of knowledge involved, the form of cognitive representations and co-elaboration of meaning and knowledge. We present a detailed analysis of an extended interaction sequence, taken from a corpus that was collected in a physics classroom. The analysis reveals how the interactive pressure imposed by the necessity to resolve interpersonal conflicts forces meanings and knowledge to evolve, and the basic function of argumentation in this context: filtering flawed proposals.
During the last decade, argumentation has attracted growing attention as a means to elicit processes (linguistic, logical, dialogical, psychological, etc.) that can sustain or provoke reasoning and learning. Constituting an important dimension of daily life and of professional activities, argumentation plays a special role in democracies and is at the heart of philosophical reasoning and scientific inquiry. Argumentation, as such, requires specific intellectual and social skills. Hence, argumentation will have an increasing importance in education, both because it is an important competence that has to be learned, and because argumentation can be used to foster learning in philosophy, history, sciences and in many other domains.
However, learning argumentation and learning by arguing, at school, still raise theoretical and methodological questions such as: How do learning processes develop in argumentation? How to design effective argumentative activities? How can the argumentative efforts of pupils can be sustained? What are the psychological issues involved when arguing with others? How to evaluate and analyze the learners’ productions?
Argumentation and Education answers these and other questions by providing both theoretical backgrounds, in psychology, education and theory of argumentation, and concrete examples of experiments and results in school contexts in a range of domains. It reports on existing innovative practices in education settings at various levels.
This article focuses on the capacity of students to develop and assess arguments during a high school genetics instructional sequence. The research focused on the locating distinction in argumentation discourse between “doing science” vs. “doing school” or “doing the lesson” (Bloome, Puro, & Theodorou, 1989). Participants in this classroom case study were high school (9th grade) students in Galicia (Spain). Students were observed, videotaped, and audiotaped while working in groups over six class sessions. Toulmin's argument pattern was used as a tool for the analysis of students' conversation and other frames were used for analyzing other dimensions of students' dialogue; (e.g., epistemic operations, use of analogies, appeal to consistency, and causal relations). Instances of “doing science” and instances of “doing the lesson” are identified and discussed as moments when the classroom discourse is dominated either by talking science or displaying the roles of students. The different arguments constructed and co-constructed by students, the elements of the arguments, and the sequence are also discussed, showing a dominance of claims and a lesser frequence of justifications or warrants. Implications for developing effective contexts to promote argumentation and science dialogue in the classroom are discussed. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed84:757–792, 2000.
Basing its arguments in current perspectives on the nature of the scientific enterprise, which see argument and argumentative practice as a core activity of scientists, this article develops the case for the inclusion and central role of argument in science education. Beginning with a review of the nature of argument, it discusses the function and purpose of dialogic argument in the social construction of scientific knowledge and the interpretation of empirical data. The case is then advanced that any education about science, rather than education in science, must give the role of argument a high priority if it is to give a fair account of the social practice of science, and develop a knowledge and understanding of the evaluative criteria used to establish scientific theories. Such knowledge is essential to enhance the public understanding of science and improve scientific literacy. The existing literature, and work that has attempted to use argument within science education, is reviewed to show that classroom practice does provide the opportunity to develop young people's ability to construct argument. Furthermore, the case is advanced that the lack of opportunities for the practice of argument within science classrooms, and lack of teacher's pedagogical skills in organizing argumentative discourse within the classroom are significant impediments to progress in the field.
In attempting to define intelligence in real-world contexts, psychologists have focused primarily on the kinds of thinking that people do in work-related environments. In this article, however, Deanna Kuhn describes another form of thinking that should be central to efforts to describe real-world intelligence: thinking as argument. It is in argument, the author maintains, that we find the most significant way in which higher order thinking and reasoning figure in the lives of most people. Kuhn describes her research, which examines the extent to which a process of reasoned argument underlies the beliefs people hold and the opinions they espouse about important social issues. Her results indicate that argumentive reasoning ability does not differ systematically as a function of sex or age (from adolescence through the late sixties), but is strongly related to education level. Kuhn believes that social contexts, such as the classroom, are the most promising arena for practicing and developing argumentive th...
Presenting the basic tools for the identification, analysis, and evaluation of common arguments for beginners, this book informs by using examples of arguments in dialogues, both in the text itself and in the exercises. (Examples of controversial legal, political, and ethical arguments are analyzed.) Illustrating the most common kinds of arguments, the book also explains how to evaluate each kind by critical questioning. Douglas Walton demonstrates the reasonable nature of arguments under the right dialogue conditions by using critical questions to evaluate them.
This article focuses on the capacity of students to develop and assess
arguments during a high school genetics instructional sequence. The
research focused on the locating distinction in argumentation discourse
between doing science vs. doing school or doing the lesson (Bloome,
Puro, & Theodorou, 1989). Participants in this classroom case study
were high school (9th grade) students in Galicia (Spain). Students were
observed, videotaped, and audiotaped while working in groups over six
class sessions. Toulmin's argument pattern was used as a tool for the
analysis of students' conversation and other frames were used for
analyzing other dimensions of students' dialogue; (e.g., epistemic
operations, use of analogies, appeal to consistency, and causal
relations). Instances of doing science and instances of doing the lesson
are identified and discussed as moments when the classroom discourse is
dominated either by talking science or displaying the roles of students.
The different arguments constructed and co-constructed by students, the
elements of the arguments, and the sequence are also discussed, showing
a dominance of claims and a lesser frequence of justifications or
warrants. Implications for developing effective contexts to promote
argumentation and science dialogue in the classroom are discussed.
Constructing scientific explanations and participating in argumentative discourse are seen as essential practices of scientific inquiry (e.g., R. Driver, P. Newton, & J. Osborne, 2000). In this paper, we identify three goals of engaging in these related scientific practices: (1) sensemaking, (2) articulating, and (3) persuading. We propose using these goals to understand student engagement with these practices, and to design instructional interventions to support students. Thus, we use this framework as a lens to investigate the question: What successes and challenges do students face as they engage in the scientific practices of explanation and argumentation? We study this in the context of a curriculum that provides students and teachers with an instructional framework for constructing and defending scientific explanations. Through this analysis, we find that students consistently use evidence to make sense of phenomenon and articulate those understandings but they do not consistently attend to the third goal of persuading others of their understandings. Examining the third goal more closely reveals that persuading others of an understanding requires social interactions that are often inhibited by traditional classroom interactions. Thus, we conclude by proposing design strategies for addressing the social challenges inherent in the related scientific practices of explanation and argumentation. (C) 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 93:26-55, 2009
The research described in this paper investigates one possible explanation for students’ ability or inability to identify fallacious arguments. As students’ ability to identify informal reasoning fallacies has been the subject of scant empirical investigation, the current study may broaden our knowledge concerning this phenomenon and locate it in a wider context of epistemological understanding. We hypothesized that students’ ability to identify invalid arguments (informal reasoning fallacies) in practice would be explained by their familiarity with argumentation norms. Two hundred and eighty-one middle and high school students were asked to perform informal reasoning fallacies and argumentation norms identification tasks. We compared performance on the fallacies task between students who were and were not familiar with the argumentation norms. The results provide strong support for our hypothesis by showing that students who were aware of general argumentation norms performed better in informal reasoning fallacies tasks.
Earlier research [Discourse Process. 23 (2/3) (2002) 135] on argumentation suggests that adults use advanced discourse strategies more consistently, more frequently, and more flexibly than do adolescents. The present study examines the development of argumentation skills during adolescence. Forty-eight seventh and eighth graders were assigned to one of two conditions. Both groups engaged in pretest and posttest measures of strategy use on two topics (capital punishment and abortion) and then engaged in five weekly dialogues on the main topic only (capital punishment). Control group participants engaged in dialogue only while experimental group participants engaged in a combination of dialogue and paired reflection on dialogues. Experimental group participants showed greater advances in argumentative discourse than control group participants. Results suggest that change in adolescents does indeed progress in the direction of adult discourse and that a combination of practice and reflection is more effective in promoting change than practice alone. The implications of these findings for a developmental model of argumentative discourse are discussed.
L'A. examine le sens social ou interpersonnel de l'argument qu'il appelle argumentation. Il s'interesse a l'argumentation theorique, i.e. celle qui est a la base des croyances et des incredulites. Deux questions principales sont posees: Quelles sont les normes de la bonne argumentation? Quelle est la base de ces normes?
Reactions of the imido complex Ti(NBut)Cl-2(py)(3) (py = pyridine) with 1,3,5-trialkyl-1,3,5-triazacyclohexanes (R(3)tach) produce the corresponding imido complexes TiCl2(NBut)(R(3)tach) (R = Et, Bu-t). The new complexes have been characterized by n.m.r. spectroscopy and, for the R = Bu-t case, by X-ray diffraction studies. The absence of a C-3 upsilon axis of symmetry for the new complexes allowed complete and unequivocal assignment of their H-1 n.m.r. spectra by consideration of proton-proton coupling and nuclear Overhauser erects.
Modern curricula in the natural sciences stress the importance of the development of intellectual skills in the domain of critical thinking. Since such curricula are laboratory/enquiry orientated, the development of certain thought‐habits should be seen both as a prerequisite and as an outcome of science‐teaching. Teachers’ skills in this respect are usually taken for granted. Recent studies throw some doubts on such assumptions. In the study reported here, pupil‐, student‐ and teacher‐samples in Australia, South Africa and Israel responded to a test involving eight categories of logical fallacies relevant to science‐education. The results showed that the great majority of pupils in upper secondary schools either committed the logical fallacies, or simply ignored the logical structure of the test‐situations. The results obtained by post‐graduate (university) student‐teachers also left much to be desired, with post‐secondary (teachers‐college) student‐teachers in an intermediate position between the secondary‐school pupils and the university groups. It was recommended that neither the pupils’ nor the (student‐)teachers’ intellectual skills should be taken for granted, that (student‐)teachers should be made aware of the lack of such skills in their (future‐)pupils, and that teacher‐education programmes, both pre‐ and in‐service, should ensure explicit attention to this problem by preventive and/or remedial action.
Informal reasoning fallacies are arguments that are psychologically pervasive but logically incorrect. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that students’ ability to identify the fallacies is associated with a process of text comprehension, specifically with a sub-process of inference during text comprehension. One hundred and eighty four high school students from three grade levels of an urban heterogeneous high school in Israel participated in the study. The students were asked to complete informal reasoning fallacies and text comprehension tasks. It was found that performance in the text comprehension tasks significantly predicted students’ ability to identify the fallacies.
The Skills of Argument presents a comprehensive empirical study of informal reasoning as argument, involving subjects across the life span. Subjects ranging in age from adolescence to late adulthood were asked to describe their views on social problems that people have occasion to think and talk about in everyday life, such as crime and unemployment. In addition to providing supporting evidence for their theories, subjects were asked to contemplate alternative theories and counterarguments and to evaluate new evidence on the topics. This is the first major study of informal reasoning across the life span. Highlighting the importance of argumentive reasoning in everyday thought, the book offers a theoretical framework for conceptualizing and studying thinking as argument. The findings address issues of major importance to cognitive and developmental psychologists, as well as educators concerned with improving the quality of people's thinking. The work is also relevant to philosophers, political scientists, and linguists interested in informal reasoning and argumentive discourse.
Effective argumentation is the distinguishing feature of a classroom that employs discovery teaching and student inquiry methodologies. In the long term, the objective of the program is to understand how to design learning environments and curriculum, instruction, and assessment models that promote student self-reflection. The study evaluates the effectiveness of the Science Education through Portfolio Instruction and Assessment (SEPIA) curriculum-instruction-assessment learning environment design features in developing learners' abilities to reason about and evaluate scientific claims. (Contains 38 references.) (YDS)
Informal reasoning fallacies are violations of critical discussion norms. As epistemological understanding of knowledge justification appears to underlie the informal reasoning skills of argument construction and evaluation, it was hypothesized that adolescents with greater epistemological sophistication would be more able to identify informal reasoning fallacies. It was hypothesized that 11th graders would be more epistemologically sophisticated than 7th or 9th graders and, thus, would more likely identify fallacies. Students responded to questions regarding argument scenarios that did or did not contain fallacies. More 11th graders identified fallacies. Epistemological level predicted only identification of one type of fallacy that might be described as epistemological in nature. Cognitive ability also seemed to contribute to the increased ability with grade to identify fallacies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This book provides a systematic analysis of many common argumentation schemes and a compendium of 96 schemes. The study of these schemes, or forms of argument that capture stereotypical patterns of human reasoning, is at the core of argumentation research. Surveying all aspects of argumentation schemes from the ground up, the book takes the reader from the elementary exposition in the first chapter to the latest state of the art in the research efforts to formalize and classify the schemes, outlined in the last chapter. It provides a systematic and comprehensive account, with notation suitable for computational applications that increasingly make use of argumentation schemes.
Many strategies used to induce the occurrence of desirable science-related beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors involve the use of persuasive messages. Science educators need to become acquainted with persuasion in the context of social influence and learning theory to be able to evaluate its usefulness in the science education milieu. Persuasion is the conscious attempt to bring about a jointly developed mental state common to both source and receiver through the use of symbolic cues, and it can be distinguished from other forms of social influence. Propaganda is a type of persuasion directed toward a mass audience. Coercion relies on reinforcement control, whereas persuasion is prompted by information. Brainwashing involves coercive techniques used to obtain cooperation and compliance. Persuasion and instruction are much alike; both require conscious cognitive activity by the recipient and involve communication which includes giving arguments and evidence for the purpose of getting someone to do something or to believe something.
This exploratory study examines how a series of laboratory activities designed using a new instructional model, called Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI), influences the ways students participate in scientific argumentation and the quality of the scientific arguments they craft as part of this process. The two outcomes of interest were assessed with a performance task that required small groups of students to explain a discrepant event and then generate a scientific argument. Student performance on this task was compared before and after an 18-week intervention that included 15 ADI laboratory activities. The results of this study suggest that the students had better disciplinary engagement and produced better arguments after the intervention although some learning issues arose that seemed to hinder the students' overall improvement. The conclusions and implications of this research include several recommendations for improving the nature of laboratory-based instruction to help cultivate the knowledge and skills students need to participate in scientific argumentation and to craft written arguments. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed95: 217–257, 2011
Basing its arguments in current perspectives on the nature of the scientific enterprise, which see argument and argumentative practice as a core activity of scientists, this article develops the case for the inclusion and central role of argument in science education. Beginning with a review of the nature of argument, it discusses the function and purpose of dialogic argument in the social construction of scientific knowledge and the interpretation of empirical data. The case is then advanced that any education about science, rather than education in science, must give the role of argument a high priority if it is to give a fair account of the social practice of science, and develop a knowledge and understanding of the evaluative criteria used to establish scientific theories. Such knowledge is essential to enhance the public understanding of science and improve scientific literacy. The existing literature, and work that has attempted to use argument within science education, is reviewed to show that classroom practice does provide the opportunity to develop young people's ability to construct argument. Furthermore, the case is advanced that the lack of opportunities for the practice of argument within science classrooms, and lack of teacher's pedagogical skills in organizing argumentative discourse within the classroom are significant impediments to progress in the field. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed84:287–312, 2000.